Katie Field
Currently, there are over 5,000 photos of my children marooned on my iPhone and tens of thousands floating around somewhere on a digital cloud. Almost none have been printed except for a precious few that made it into my first child’s baby book.
Like most parents on Facebook, I am eager to share the best of my kids’ childhood moments with those who care to witness them. But not every one of my “friends” wants to see all of these pictures, and after they are posted they seem to disappear into a digital wasteland.
In this era of over sharing, Naples mom Katie Field began to imagine an application that could help her manage and share all of her favorite photos of her children without annoying her Facebook friends. For her twins, she explained, she documented everything in a baby book. But when her third child was born, she regrets that she only accomplished writing his name in the baby book. With three sons under the age of 5, this busy mom wanted an easy tool to help her document her family life.
Together with her husband Farouk Al-Shorafa, a computer systems engineer and Florian Vlad, a founder of media publishing site Twinzapp.com, they developed BUN, a photo application that piggybacks onto Facebook to organize photos in a private virtual space that can be accessed by invited friends and family.
The tool, which appears under Facebook albums in a profile, uses the digital time stamp to organize her uploads into albums for each of children. Special events also can be designated. Only invited friends and family can view the pictures on their timelines as they are posted, or look through earlier albums through the app. As her children get older, they can look through their virtual albums and know exactly how old they were in each photo. Unlike regular Facebook posts, the photos cannot be shared by anyone other than the owner.
“I wanted something for each child to tell their story,” Field explains. “This will be their keepsake tailored just for them.”
Moms of older children with digital regrets (like me) can take advantage of this tool as well. By uploading photos from their phones and computers, the app will sort the photos and organize them into a timeline for each child. Field and her co-founders also hope that organizations such as sports teams, scouting troops and preschool teachers will benefit from BUN after the app’s next update. Currently, her children’s preschool teachers will text photos of the children to the parents or post them on the school’s Facebook page. BUN would allow small groups to share photos privately among group members.
After presenting their idea at the Southwest Florida Venture Pitch event in Naples, BUN received the audience award for “Best Pitch” and generated enough interest for the developers to move forward with designing the app. Launched in the Apple App Store last February, BUN is a free download that currently is available only to Apple iOS users. Future updates will include android availability and a tiered storage plan. Users must have a Facebook account to use the app.
For more information go to www.BUNphotos.com.